Alt Text: Dividing Up Space-Mining Rights With the Help of Sinistar

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Alt Text: Dividing Up Space-Mining Rights With the Help of Sinistar

As increasing numbers of vessels are being shot into space powered by pure liquid capitalism, we are beginning to face issues that previously have only been the concern of science fiction writers, loopy futurists and economists. One concern that's looming on the horizon (as only things on the horizon can loom) is the issue of mining rights in space. How do we determine who gets the right to extract asteroids of their valuable whatever they have? Asteroidium or something.

Luckily, we have millennia of human history to consult and see the best way to divide up land rights. Looks like ... hmm. Basically, people kill each other a bunch until someone becomes powerful enough that the government declares they owned the land all along. Then there's a bit more killing and we're done.

So, yeah, maybe we can improve on that. Here are three suggestions for equitably, or at least amusingly, divvying up the astroswag.

1. Plant a Flag

This is probably the most straightforward and reasonable method, but I like it nonetheless. This is what people do in cartoons when they want to claim a world or a mine or, perhaps a dog, if they're a flea. They shove a flag into the ground and say something like, "I hereby claim this asteroid in the name of the Nation of Bransonia." Two things, though. It has to be a real flag. And it has to be a real person. No robots with tiny sandwich flags.

Advantage: Life will be more like cartoons, which is always a good thing.

Disadvantage: People shoot each other a lot in cartoons.

2. Simulation

It might be best to decide who gets the asteroids before anyone actually leaves the planet. But this requires determining who will be the best steward of our precious extraterrestrial resources, preferably through some sort of computer simulation. Luckily, the perfect asteroid-mining simulation was created in 1982, and is called Sinistar. This arcade game challenges you to extract flashing dots from asteroids while avoiding a giant evil space head that yells at you in a bowel-emptying tone of voice. Ideally, we would also put an actual giant evil space head in the asteroid belt, but I'm willing to compromise.

3. Pre-RegistrationAs it turns out, there are already several companies in the business of assigning asteroid rights. These companies will, for a small fee, name an asteroid after you or a loved one. A small, ridiculously overpriced fee, as it turns out, because these registries have absolutely no validity or standing. But what if they did? We could just say that the person an asteroid is "named" after owns the rights to that asteroid. This will have the dual benefits of resolving rights quickly, and rewarding people who ordered stuff out of the back of Omni magazine in the '80s.

Advantage: I'd own an asteroid. Thanks, mom!

Disadvantage: With my luck, it's probably about as valuable as old issues of Omni magazine.

Born helpless, naked and unable to provide for himself, Lore Sjöberg overcame these handicaps to become a namesake, a keepsake and a glass of sake.